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I lean in toward him, tippy-toed, reaching for those suspenders to pull him low enough. My head tilts, and I go for his lips, those sharp bowed lines. But before I feel our lips melding into one, his hand flies out of my pants and he’s pushing us apart. Water rushes in, crushing in ways his arms never could.

Every damn emotion is painted across his tempting rain-kissed face, as though he were a thousand men in one—sinking regret mixed up with unmistakable longing, creases of confusion, restraint in every quivering muscle—and through those cryptic brown irises, he’s trying to tell me everything and nothing at once.

He holds me at arm’s length, his trembling fingers digging into my shoulders. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Was it not obvious? What in the mad fuck is wrong with you? You’ll stick your hand down my pants, but you won’t kiss me?”

He forces a cruel mask of spite onto his face, concealing the jumbled muck of emotions he let through. “Yes.”

It’s like a kick to the throat. I shove his chest, splashing water onto our faces. “Youbrought me here.Yougot close.Youtouched me.” But what does it matter? This was an escape, two bodies, no feeling.

“Malachite.” The force of his grip doubles, and he drives me backward and slams me into a nest of slimy roots forming the eroded bank of the inlet, his eyes set on the woods behind me. “Guards.”

“The Centress’ guards? How did they get across the ravine?” I whisper, fear winning out over the fire in me. Milo tied the rope on this side for us to get back.

“The bridge.”

“There’s a fuckingbridge?”

He holds his thumb to my lips and sneaks a glance down at me, smirking. “There’s always a bridge.” The roots creak as he presses closer. “Stay low, don’t speak and don’t move.” He backs away from the bank into the center of the inlet, leaving me holding on to the roots, rejected and forcibly drowning my desire.

Chapter

Thirty-One

“Who’s with you, Eli?” A man’s voice booms from the tree-lined bank behind me.

“No one, Poett. What are you even doing in this area?” Eli asks. He’s six feet away, treading water in the middle of the inlet where it’s deepest, avoiding looking at me.

“I saw her.”

“None of your business who I fuck at the lake,” Eli says, fast and pissed.

“It is when the only reason we’re allowed to be out past curfew is to find the missing Hollow.”

“Right. I’m leaving.”

“Show me her face.” The voice moves closer.

No no no.

Rain streaks down Eli’s shifting jaw. “You can’t be serious.”

“What’s there to hide?” The guard he called Poett is almost above me.

Eli swims two feet closer. “Just giving her privacy.”

“Since when do you give a fuck about anyone?” Poett snatches a fistful of my wet hair and pulls me up and back, holding my head against the edge of the muddy bank. His sunken pale cheeks and black eyes loom over me, brown hair tied back into a tail that falls over the shoulder of his black jumpsuit—one of the Centress’ guards from the school. He jerks my head back harder upon seeing my face. “It’s her. Get over here, Jace.”

Eli lunges forward, plants a foot on the tangled underwater roots and launches himself up onto the bank. With a punch and asmackof wet flesh against flesh, my hair is freed. Eli hurls Poett over my head by his hair. His body slaps the water, and Eli jumps onto him, throws an arm around his neck and wrenches it back. “Donottouch her again.”

I clutch my flaming scalp. Screams and splashes come from the rocky shore where we left Kaleida, Sypher and Milo. How many more guards are there?

Poett wedges his fingers between his neck and Eli’s arm, thrashing and trying to break free. “You’re fucking the Hollow, Eli? That’s where she’s been all this time? Under you?”

Eli tightens his grip, forcing a grunt from Poett.

“We should have known no one would have been able to get past you to take her from the prison cell. You had us all fooled while you helped look for her and the traitor every damn day. Where’d you get the bruises?” Poett rasps every word while he tries to escape Eli’s crushing hold on his neck. “Did you get off on letting her beat you while you rammed into her? Or did Sypher do that when he realized you’d rather have another species over him?”